Recipes pulled from Batavia’s churches and Italian-American families are being revived as part of a Saint Joseph’s Feast that Main Street Pizza Company chef Jason Ball hopes becomes a renewed tradition. The downtown restaurant is set to host a full feast on Sunday and Monday, March 18 and 19, with a portion of the proceeds coming back to local churches.

“I’ve seen this as an opportunity to keep the tradition alive — not too many places or churches do it anymore, but back in the day it was always a big thing,” Ball said as he and his colleagues prepared for Thursday’s lunch crowd. “I hope it’s never-ending — that we run out of food on Monday night. It’s two days, and we’ll have plenty, plenty of food.”